GERMANY PROMISES DUELS FOR ALL

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 22, 25 July 1936, Page 27

GERMANY PROMISES DUELS FOR ALL

J^EMBERS of the German army, the Nazi S.S. (picked guards), 'and S.A. (Storm Troop) organisations, and the German university "corporations" will be able to shoot and hack one another to death in affairs of honour without being held responsible by the law, if recommendations contained in the final preparatory draft of the,new Nazi Criminal Code are accepted, writes William Stoneman in the "Sari Francisco' Chronicle."

By making no provisions .for the punishment of a duellist, the new draft goes much further than the pre-war German code, which countenanced duelling as a practice but gave the Courts authority to deal harshly with participants when the circumstances justified. By opening up the duel to the unaristocratic hordes of the S.S. and, the S.A., who already have an extra legal right to as- >

suage their honour in this way, it also promises an era in which butchers and bakers who belong to the Black Shirts and the Brown Shirts will be able to butcher and maim one another with as much immunity as that generally reserved for bluebloods.

The only concession to the fact that this is 1936 and not 1736 is the stipulation that "no person shall be considered dishonourable if he finds it proper to protect his honour in other ways."

Before the. war an officer or member of a fighting student corporation who refused to participate in a duel was ostracised.

Duelling has been gradually reinstated in Germany since the coming of the Nazis in 1933. Compulsory sword duels amorg students were legalised in May, 1933. Duelling among members of the S.A. was indirectly acknowledged in a set of. instructions issued on December 12, 1933, which stated that the time and place of any duel must be communicated to the Brown Shirt Court of Honour in advance.

An order of the army command dated November 1, 1934, allowed officers, with the consent of their commanders, to fight duels with pistols until one of the participants was disabled.